On Tuesday I got more acquainted with the Nürnberg transit system than a lot of Nürnbergers are. The easy way to do this is to try to go somewhere when you're not sure if what you're hearing or seeing are words or names of locations. I left for rehearsal at a good time and then about 3 and a half hours later, I finally showed up. But that was my fault. The transit system here is incredible. Nürnberg is a city of about 500,000 people. I think half of them ride the U-bahn (subway). It's pretty densely populated, similar to Portland. But people drive like absolute maniacs here. I'm even afraid to ride a bicycle because then I wouldn't have the time to make sure my way was going to be clear.

Above is the Königstor, or King's Tower from around 1400AD. This part of the city still has the wall from when it was all built intact, except for places where they've carved out spots for cars. Much of this part of town (called Altstadt or "Old Town") was destroyed in bombing raids in 1945 so it is an interesting mix of old meets new. It's also the main shopping and tourism district.

I got this beer last night from a Greek restaurant down the street. It was only 2 Euro, about $2.50. I had a salad there, too and they were giving out free shots of Ouzo. Good stuff, that Ouzo, but having had it before, I kept it to just one.

Pictured below is some graffiti I saw in Erlangen, the next town south on the train line. There is tons of graffiti here, some of it very impressive. Some of it is very political, and some of it is just funny, like this one:

Above is the view of Hauptstraße, or Main Street in what I'm guessing is downtown Baiersdorf, a town of about 7000 people.

The North Atlantic Ocean, just east of Greenland. I thought the Atlantic was supposed to be warmer. I'm not entirely convinced that those aren't clouds, but if they are, they're really low hanging ones. We were at 37,000 feet at this point. I want to think that it's frozen ocean, though.